(The following is Part 2 of a three-part series)

In line with the stated purpose of an emerging sport, does sand volleyball really provide additional participation opportunities for women, or will it be populated by student-athletes who already play the indoor game?

That was among the dominant questions during deliberations about whether sand volleyball should be an emerging sport. Now that it has been approved as such and the way the game will be contested has begun to take shape (see Part 1 of this series), the question still lingers for coaches and administrators who aren’t quite sure who will make up the player pool.

“Sand volleyball is a game that demands a lot of skills that the indoor game doesn’t,” said Michigan indoor coach Mark Rosen. “It will teach our players to be well-rounded volleyball players. The problem is that our indoor game – because of our substitution rules and the libero position – is not suited to produce well-rounded players.

“It should be in our best interests to make our players well-rounded, but that might not help you win games indoors.”

Therein lies the rub for sand volleyball (other than the rub of the sand once it gets in the uniform). Sand volleyball and its indoor counterpart are vastly different. Yet as an emerging sport, the sand version probably will rely on indoor players to take it from fledgling to thriving.

“Most women’s sports started with crossovers,” said American Volleyball Coaches Association Executive Director Kathy DeBoer. “In the 1970s, half the volleyball players were crossovers from basketball.”

The crossover issue prompts two rather divergent concerns. One is that indoor teams will use the sand game to improve their indoor rosters – which assumes a natural tendency for player crossover. The other, though – per Rosen’s claim – is that there may not be the incentive for crossover that people might think simply because indoor players might be too specialized to succeed in the sand.

The first concern might be mitigated by AVCA concepts that structure scholarships for sand volleyball in a progression that primes the sand pump with indoor players but reduces that reliance over time.

In Division I, the sand game is being proposed as an equivalency sport, not head-count, and there are several models as to how those equivalencies would be distributed. One proposal has schools without indoor volleyball (and there aren’t many) that choose to sponsor sand getting six scholarships to divide among a roster projected to be about 12-15 players.

The concept gets interesting for the rest that choose to sponsor both sports. Sand teams at schools with indoor would get one scholarship, effective immediately, then a second in 2011-12, a third in 2012-13 and a fourth in 2013-14.

Division II also is considering a couple of aid options, including a progression model that starts with two equivalencies for 2010-11, increases to three in 2012-13 and to four by 2015-16.

Now, those student-athletes who receive aid as a sand player become counters toward the indoor roster if they practice with or compete for the indoor team. Why? Because that will keep indoor teams from using sand to stockpile indoor players.

It’s the same model the NCAA has used before, the AVCA’s DeBoer said. When the NCAA began sponsoring championships for women’s sports in the early 1980s, members adopted rules stipulating that volleyball players on scholarship money who also played basketball would count against basketball numbers.

“That rule was in place because people were worried about schools loading up their basketball team by giving volleyball basketball players’ money,” DeBoer said, noting that the rule continues today. “So will sand volleyball start with a lot of crossover players? Absolutely.”

DeBoer called the current player pool for sand “broad but thin” nationally. Most of the young players who have the training in passing, setting, serving and the kinds of fundamental skills necessary to play sand volleyball have spent years honing those skills indoors, she said.

“Now, that will change somewhat rapidly – probably within three to five years – as teenage girls see that there is an opportunity to specialize in sand volleyball,” DeBoer said. “They will start doing that just like they did in basketball and indoor volleyball in the 1980s.”

However, players thinking about being on both squads better realize the commitment up front.

Michigan’s Rosen in fact straw-polled his indoor team recently after a March practice, asking players what they’d think if they could be playing sand volleyball right then instead of indoor.

“And because we were in the middle of training pretty hard, they all enthusiastically raised their hands,” Rosen said. “Then I said, ‘OK, what if that meant we’d be devoting 20 hours per week instead of eight to practice and training, since we’d be in season?’ And they all raised their hands again, but not as ambitiously.”

Then Rosen asked, what if they were in the sand season and the championship was in late May or early June? (Michigan’s spring semester ends in late April, by the way.) “Now they’re really hesitant,” he said. “They said they’d still do it, but it made them think of sand differently than just something they’d rather be doing than training for indoor.”

DeBoer said that light bulb will come on quickly for most players. “Playing both indoor and sand will feel like playing field hockey and lacrosse or volleyball and softball,” she said. “It will very much feel like a year-round activity, so I think athletes themselves will start making decisions about which they want to do.”

But then that’s DeBoer’s goal, which in fact would increase opportunities for women, since the same women wouldn’t be playing both games, eventually. “The opportunity to have more roster spots to encourage high schools and clubs programs to start training people in the sand discipline will have the effect of encouraging more kids to play volleyball in general,” she said.

Will they be in bikinis?

No, no, a thousand times, no. The uniform issue has been one of the sand game’s sticking points. It’s no surprise that people attribute some of the pro model’s success to its lack of clothing, but hardly anyone (at least anyone who would have a say in formulating NCAA rules) believes that would be appropriate for the collegiate model.

Most likely, college players would wear two-piece uniforms – shorts or briefs and a top, though it’s not yet clear what kind of a top. The AVCA concept calls for it to cover the entire length of the torso and hang below the waistband of the trunks when players are standing still. That allows players’ numbers to be placed visibly on the front and back.

Current college players typically wear trunks and a tank top or a top resembling more of a sports bra than swimwear, but the midrifts typically are bare.

Nebraska indoor coach John Cook says those are a good compromise between showing off athleticism and maintaining decency. “When athletes are trained and are in great shape, the uniforms they currently wear in college sand volleyball are appropriate,” he said.

Whatever the outcome, the uniforms won’t be the skimpy pro variety.

“You know, the NCAA tells kids what to wear in track, football, basketball – all sports – why wouldn’t they tell sand volleyball players what to wear?” DeBoer said. “Why would anyone think we’re going to add a sport and not regulate those things? What are they going to wear? They’re going to wear what we tell them they’re going to wear – just like in every other sport.”

As tricky as the clothing has been, so is the very name of the sport. Some people in fact think “sand” rather than “beach” is just another way to add to the college game’s more Puritan image. In reality, though, sand volleyball will be played far more in land-locked locations than on the coasts – so why not call it what it actually is?

DeBoer certainly wants to.

“Can we talk about this game without mentioning ‘beach’ or ‘bikini’?” she said.

Absolutely. And we can also talk about whether this sport called sand volleyball has a chance to be successful in Part 3 of this series tomorrow.